Almost the last musical event I attended in before lockdown was a Bath Opera performance, and two years on it was time for another, Eugene Onegin.
I’ve been to three performances of this – one a few years ago at the ROH I wrote about here and the first was Glyndebourne Touring Opera in Oxford in December 2002, so a few months before I started this blog. (The main thing I remember about that particular performance was the odd contortions adopted during the dance at the beginning of Act 3, in an otherwise realistic production. Every so often the dancers would freeze into some improbable pose, highlighted by the lighting, for a few seconds.)
Bath Opera adopted a more naturalistic approach throughout, with a small dancing troupe among the carefully directed chorus. There’s a cast list here. As at the ROH, I found myself wanting to hear more of Lensky (here sung by Daniel Gray Bell). The (mostly) young principals were all convincing and vocally secure; the small orchestra settled as the evening progressed (this was the first night).
I don’t know whether it was something about me, but the people on either side of me all left during the first act. Perhaps they didn’t care for the work being sung in English, or maybe they’d just had enough of things Russian that day (February 24th); both reasons might have applied especially to the Polish couple on my right.
I missed one standard aspect of Bath Opera productions: the raffle of bottles and the like, donated by the cast. I’ve rarely left a performance empty-handed. Probably a Covid casualty, although I think it could have been managed in a responsibly distanced way.